Search by subject

Reports

Reports provides short summaries of the latest findings of academic institutes, think-tanks, charities, pressure groups and government and international bodies from 2011 to 2014. The reports included can, in the main, be accessed free of charge. For a review of the academic literature, for which journal subscriptions are required, the Social Policy digest is a good source.

The way in which poverty is assessed needs to take into account inequality among those counted as multi-dimensionally poor, according to a new paper from researchers at the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative.

The authors provide two illustrations, using Demographic Health Survey datasets, to demonstrate how an inequality measure adds important information to the 'adjusted headcount ratio' poverty measure.

The global economic crisis reversed the previous progress made by many EU countries in reducing relative poverty and material deprivation, according to a Belgian think tank report. Some of the poorest member states and most vulnerable groups have been affected the most.

The report attempts to get a better understanding of trends in poverty and inequality in Europe during the last decade, by analysing large-scale cross-country datasets, in particular the European Community Household Panel (ECHP) and the EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC).

Rising living costs and changes to the benefits system are driving increasing numbers of vulnerable families to use emergency food services, according to a report from the Barnardo's charity.

The report examines the extent and nature of food poverty among families and young people, based on a survey of Barnardo's services.

Key findings
94 per cent of services say that use of emergency food services is rising or high.
90 per cent of services say they have referred people to food banks in the past 12 months.
92 per cent of applicable services say demand for Christmas food parcels is increasing.

Barnardo’s Assistant Director of Policy and Research Neera Sharma said: 'It's a tragedy that in one of the world's richest countries, the most vulnerable families can't afford to buy Christmas dinner for their children'.

Many people in Britain have lost faith in the benefit system, according to a new think-tank report charting the major pressures facing families today.

The interim report of the Condition of Britain project, being conducted by the Institute for Public Policy Research, says many families fear for the future of their children. Most people want to work hard and contribute, it says – but they need to know that, in return, they will get support to find work, avoid hardship if they lose their job, and not fall into a spiral of debt if they need to borrow.

Soaring energy bills are forcing families to spend more than ever on heating and maintaining their homes, according to official figures on the growing squeeze on household budgets – with those on lower incomes now spending 25 per cent of their income on housing.

The figures emerge from the latest annual Office for National Statistics report on household spending.

Poor households are cutting food costs in an attempt to cope with the effects of rising fuel bills, shrinking incomes and benefits changes such as the 'bedroom tax', according to the latest instalment of a survey looking at the impact of coalition government policies.

The 'Real Life Reform' project is tracking the impact of benefits reform on up to 100 households in social housing across the north of England through to 2015. This is the second of six scheduled reports on how the households are responding to the changes.

For the first time, there are more people in working families living below the poverty line (6.7 million) than in workless and retired families in poverty combined (6.3 million), according to the latest annual survey of poverty trends from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

A call has been made for a new headline indicator designed to measure progress towards eradicating global poverty in its many dimensions.

The case for the new indicator is made in the latest Development Co-operation Report published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in a chapter written by Sabina Alkire (Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative - OPHI).

The rising number of working people living in households in poverty is causing the coalition government to spend billions more than planned on social security, according to a new TUC report.

The report compares social security spending over the course of the current Parliament with the government’s original forecast in 2010, as well as taking a longer-term look at spending on benefits over the last three decades.

Pages

PSE:UK is a major collaboration between the University of Bristol, Heriot-Watt University, The Open University, Queen's University Belfast, University of Glasgow and the University of York working with the National Centre for Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency. ESRC Grant RES-060-25-0052.